After years as a party girl, one mother and her daughter have turned to Islam for ‘protection’ from the excesses of the modern world. Emma Pinch reports
JASMINE SCARISBRICK has just arrived home from school and she’s ravenous. She’s conspicuously not scouring the kitchen for crisps and cheese strings, and she skipped lunch and breakfast. The inspiration for a food-free day for most girls her age would probably be found in the snaps of rake-thin stars in magazines like Heat.
But the reason Jasmine, 14, isn’t eating is that she is observing her second Ramadan.
A Muslim convert, Jasmine admits her faith can distance her from her peers – they describe her fast as “awful” – and her mother, Amirah, concedes from her own experience of school it must be hard for her daughter. Words like “irresponsible” were bandied about when Jasmine first started wearing her headscarf.
But, explains Amirah, bringing her daughter up as a Muslim in modern Britain has benefits which far outweigh the negatives.
“Some people consider it quite extreme, but I see it as common sense,” says the softly-spoken 36-year-old.
“At this vulnerable time of adolescence, being a Muslim offers a lot of protection for her, because there are certain things she can and she can’t do. A lot of her peers are hanging out on street corners, experimenting with sex, taking drugs and some might become pregnant. It’s almost like – they are teenagers, it’s acceptable.
“Jasmine is unique.”
Home for Jasmine and Amirah, who was formerly called Louise, is a Victorian terrace in Wallasey with a view of the glittering Mersey at the end of the street. It’s quietly restful. The living room is lightly scented with incense and framed tracts of curly Arabic adorn the walls.
Amirah herself radiates a serene calm. But since she’s eaten nothing since her suhoor meal of porridge since 4.30am, it might just be weariness. Now and again she carefully licks her lips.
“The hardest test of faith is fajr, where you have to get yourself out of bed, your nice warm bed and go to the bathroom and do wudu,” she smiles softly. “You have to purify yourself with water, cover yourself so just your hands and face are showing, then you have to pray. When you’ve done that you feel quite smug and you can go back to bed for an hour or two.
“It’s not just about giving up food, it’s time to improve yourself – you’re not supposed to get angry. I do miss having a cup of tea during the day and the first few days are very difficult. You have days when you feel very weak, but generally it’s made easy. You know you have a meal at the end of the day. But you see people filling up their trolley at Asda and realise how much we over-consume.”
The discipline her faith demands is actually what drew Amirah to Islam in the first place. She converted seven years ago in October, just as she approached her 30th birthday. In her youth, she says, she was a party girl.
“If you had seen me at 18 and said by the time you’re 30 you’ll be a Muslim, I would have laughed. I was born in Liverpool with no exposure to Islam.
“My father was a musician and I had a lot of freedom, and was more or less brought up an atheist. Christmas was about a nice Christmas dinner and getting presents and being with friends.”
As a young adult, she says: “I loved my wine and I loved dating, going out and enjoying myself.
“I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but I got to a certain age not much older than Jasmine, and I had to put the brakes on,” she says.
“I realised sometimes you need boundaries. You can get into trouble without restrictions. I liked the parameters Islam offered and the responsibility to family. Islam says paradise lies at the feet of the mother, which is beautiful. British society was like that years ago, but I feel we’ve lost that a little bit.”
Nearing 30, and after becoming a single mother at 22, she began to feel there was a hole in her life. Others filled it by immersing themselves into work, relationships or even addictions. For her, Islam’s appeal intensified. She read Islamic texts, and a Syrian woman and a Tunisian woman took her under their wing. She was welcomed as someone chosen; loved especially by God to be brought to a faith she wasn’t born into.
Her friends and family, however, were more doubtful – especially seeing the difference her new faith made to her outward appearance.
“When I became Muslim, I used to wear a beret as the first step in covering my head. You can’t rush it. At first, I didn’t see the point.
“When I started wearing the scarf, I had a coming-out party at Kimos restaurant, on Mount Pleasant, where my friends and family they could all see me for the first time with the scarf and modest clothing. All my friends saw it as a bit of a tragedy because I couldn’t drink any more. My family were perplexed. But my dad told me it was the best thing I’d ever done.”
Amirah now also wears the long, loose-fitting abaya, which she felt more nervous of wearing because of the attention it might attract.
She chooses a pretty, flowing pink one with a matching headscarf, but stops short of donning the more restrictive nikab.
“For me personally, living in the UK in this area, I feel that would repel people rather than attract them,” she explains, “and I wear Arabic-style clothes, rather than a Pakistani shalwar kameez, because it’s what I’ve been exposed to. I wear a lot of Western clothes, too, but I adapt them a little bit, so there is no cleavage or leg showing.
“It’s amazing how a piece of material can provoke such a response by people. I’ve become oblivious to it. Actually I’ve been racially abused more times than an Asian man I know. People just see the scarf.”
It’s the outward element of Islam that many Western women feel most uncomfortable with.
“It’s much more respectful not to reveal yourself for all and sundry to see,” she contends. “I don’t experience sexual harassment to the same degree as before. Men on a building site are not going to wolf-whistle or be derogatory. It’s not about why can’t men control themselves, it’s about being appreciated for your personality, rather than the way you look.”
Amirah, in the third year of a degree in Education and Disability Studies at Liverpool Hope University, was canny enough not to insist on her daughter’s conversion, but at 13 Jasmine started going to the mosque regularly, inspired by her mother’s example. She has a gift for Arabic and goes to Quran classes and, before starting secondary school, decided she would wear the head covering.
“I thought, if I put it on in Year Seven, everyone will be used to it by Year 10, and they won’t see it as a big thing,” explains Jasmine, still in the dark trousers and top uniform of Weatherhead High School.
“I still get the looks and whispers, but not as much. My faith makes me see how selfish people can be, even if they have everything. It makes you look at people.
“You never get into anything bad or get in trouble, like smoking, drinking or being with boys. I’ve always stayed out of it and teachers can really tell. It’s helped me in that way, in the usual teenage stuff.”
Does she ever feel she’s missing out?
“It never really interests me.” She pauses and adds candidly: “It’s a lot harder to make friends. “Because I won’t talk about drinking and Big Brother, sometimes I feel a bit out of the crowd. Because I’m a convert, I don’t have the same culture as some of my Muslim friends who were Muslim from the day they were born. I’m stuck in the middle.
“I still benefit,” she adds placidly. A day’s fasting draws to an end, and there are invitations to the houses of Muslims offering mouth- watering Egyptian, Moroc- can and Bengali delicacies.
Doesn’t former party girl Amirah ever fancy just one cold glass of Sauvignon?
“I’ve done all that,” she says. “A bottle of wine just gives you a hangover. My faith is an investment. It gives me inner peace and resilience to cope with difficulties.
“I was so frivolous with most of my youth. But I look at Jasmine who is learning Arabic at 14 and . . . imagine her potential.”
The future’s bright for Jasmine.
For now, they’re just off to have a lie down.
emma.pinch@dailypost.co.uk
